


Renegade

by gremlinny



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Backstory, Canon Era, Latino Jack Kelly, Mentions of Murder, Pre-Canon, Trans Jack Kelly, jack kelly is latino, jack kelly is transgender, mentions of abuse, the original characters are his parents, transgender character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:07:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23225293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gremlinny/pseuds/gremlinny
Summary: It’s a nice name. It suits him. It’s better than having his father’s name, safer than using his mother’s.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	Renegade

**Author's Note:**

> As always, this was written with the 92sies version of Jack in mind  
> Trigger warnings for mentions of abuse and murder.

_Jack Kelly._

The name rolls off his tongue easily, and there’s a sort of rhythm to the way those three syllables sound.

It suits him. It’s better than having his father’s name, safer than using his mother’s.

When Jack was six years old, Mason Sullivan’s mugshot had made the front page of every paper in the state of New York. Nobody liked him from the moment they read his name or saw his face. The police report dragged him through the mud at every turn, highlighting his inability to hold a job, a quick temper, and supposed alcoholism.

As an Irish Mexican from Texas, he was by no means a friend to the media.

Before that, before the front page mugshot, it was different. 

Paméla Suárez had lived in the territory of New Mexico for most of her life, until she moved to New York and married Mason. 

Francisca Suárez is born in 1882, but to strangers her name is Frances Sullivan. 

Paméla worked any job she could find, and then stayed at home to take care of their child. 

Mason worked hard at every rotten job he was hired for until his bosses got sick of him. 

The times were stressful, and money was tight, and they moved from one tenement to another every few months.

Their child bought dime novels with pocket change, obsessed with stories about western frontiers and cowboys and the boom-towns of 1849. Paméla tells stories of New Mexico, coming up with lullabies about Santa Fe. Mason pools together enough money for a trip to Coney Island.

It’s not Santa Fe, nowhere near close to it, but there’s a fake plastic cactus and a painted desert backdrop, and a cowboy hat that’s three sizes too big for the child’s head. The family gets their photograph taken, happy and smiling, for the last time.

Mason Sullivan kills Paméla Suárez late that night, after an argument about finances. Their six-year-old child hides under the bed, clinging to the hat and the photograph, until the police arrive. Mason Sullivan is dragged out of the apartment kicking and screaming, and Paméla Suárez is dead. 

His parents’ names are not safe to use. The name of a murderer and the name of a dead woman. 

He can’t use the name he was born with, or the name he was called around strangers. 

He’s not that girl anymore, he’s outgrown her. Surpassed everything she was, everything he used to be—except for the love of those dime novels. 

He takes his first name from the protagonist of his favorite book, and his last name from the publishing company, and it’s the most amazing thing he’s ever come up with. 

His friends call him Cowboy, _Vaquero_ , Captain Jack.

The papers call him fearless, charming, charismatic. Witty. Heroic. Handsome.

For once, he believes it. 

His name makes its way into everyone’s vocabulary, good or bad, and it rolls off their tongues easily.

When him and his friends make the front page, smiling and shouting and blurry with motion, Jack feels like a better man than his father ever was. 

When they win the strike, he hopes his mother knows that he’s done hiding.

And when the streets of New York echo with thousands of people chanting his name, Jack Kelly smiles, because there’s a nice rhythm to the way those three syllables sound.

**Author's Note:**

> The book I mentioned was “Jack Jordan’s Pard; or, the Santa Fe Hunters”  
> The publishing company I mentioned was “Kelly’s Weekly.”
> 
> Be glad he didn’t name himself Jordan Weekly


End file.
